Contrarian reader Kirby McVicar responds to our post on MLAs’ pay and public begrudgery:
The question that springs to my mind is: “Who are you and what have you done with Parker Donham?" [caption id="attachment_4485" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Resigned MLA Richard Hurlburt"]Resigned MLA<BR>Richard Hurlburt[/caption] What I hear you say is, "Well, MLA’s only stole a little bit, and it's the media’s and the public's fault for not providing adequate salary." Are you serious? What does this line of thinking say to all the honest MLA’s who did not steal from the public purse: "You missed out on an opportunity we, the public and the media, set up for you. How stupid of you!" I agree that politicians need an independent body to set remuneration policy that is binding, but this issue should not be confused with theft from the public purse. Where is the CBC Parker, from the "Harry and Parker Show" who would have spent 15 minutes railing against such a rationale? Has the election of an NDP government outed you?
I was out of the country, but wasn't it a Tory MLA who resigned? After the jump, more reader reaction.
17 February, 2010

By 7:30 a.m., today, it had stopped snowing at Kempt Head. Total accumulation: 2-5/8ths inches. Cancellations: Cape Breton Victoria School Board; Strait Richmond School Board; NSCC Marconi Campus; NSCC Strait Campus; Mayflower Mall (until noon, except for anchor stores); and pretty much every other event you could think of. Imagine! Two and five-eighth inches of snow! In February, in Nova Scotia! Gadzooks! Why hasn't the army been called? What on earth has happened to us? What has turned us into a nation of cowering, cringing, 'fraidy cats who darsn't get out of bed in the morning, lest something bad happen. Something bad might happen. Get...

17 February, 2010

In response to our post about pay phones, Contrarian reader AN points out that people concerned about the vanishing phone booth can adopt one of the gorgeous British Telecom kiosks at left. Well, you can if you are a British municipal authority. The cost? Free, without a phone; £300 per year with pay phone service. Not sure who would want to adopt the booth at right....

15 February, 2010

A friend asked recently why I had not written about the MLA expenses flap, and I confessed that I have trouble summoning much outrage over the issue. While I admire Brian Flinn's dogged pursuit of the facts in AllNovaScotia.com, I fear that the public and the media are almost as much to blame for the problem as our lawmakers. The public nurses an attitude of begrudgery toward politicians, and the media fans these embers at every opportunity. This is not our most attractive quality, and it makes it almost impossible for MLAs — who by definition must set their own salaries...

15 February, 2010

The New York Times checked out a sidewalk booth outside the Fast & Fresh Supermarket Deli & Grocery on Queens Boulevard in Kew Gardens, NY. Benjamin Patir called his son because he was lonely and, perhaps more important, because he had a quarter. Robert J. Covelli called his son, too, to find out if, at some point during the more than 24 hours he spent in custody, he had become, for the first time, a grandfather. Frank Federico, fresh from a courthouse jail cell, called his mother, who spared him any lectures and asked him if he needed a ride home. The...

13 February, 2010
What's up with AllNovaScotia's curious blind spot for Cape Breton Regional Municipality Mayor John Morgan? Like many others, AllNS's editorialists took umbrage when the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society charged lawyer Morgan with professional misconduct for accusing Supreme Justice John Murphy, and Nova Scotia judges in general, of political bias in the performance of their duties. An AllNS editorial argued that it was dangerous and wrong to muzzle political speech by a politician who also happens to be a lawyer. So far, so reasonable. The odd thing is that the usually reliable news service seems to be letting its editorial passion slop over into its news columns. AllNS news stories have persistently misrepresented the comments that got Morgan in trouble. Instead of quoting or characterizing Morgan's original words, AllNS quotes only the sanitized version Morgan came up with after he got in hot water. The background is here, but in short, Morgan pretends he merely said Nova Scotia judges were not tree-shakers; in reality, he went on for paragraphs alleging political bias by the judge who first rejected his grandstanding constitutional claim for higher equalization payments — a lawsuit that was ultimately rejected by every judge who reviewed it, up to and including the Supreme Court of Canada.
13 February, 2010

Still on the subject of aircraft, remember US Airways Flight 1549, the Airbus 320 that set down safely in New York's Hudson River after losing both its engines to a collision with Canada geese? Exosphere3D, a Denver company that "specializes in technical animation and scientific visualization of complex data sets," has combined the wealth of publicly available radar data, cockpit and air traffic control recordings, and flight recorder information to create a series of startling 3D animations the tell the story in a way that would have been inconceivable a decade ago. I've embedded the best of the bunch...

10 February, 2010
Kulula, the low cost South African airline, has decorated its newest Boeing 737 with helpful graphics to guide the uninitiated. The aircraft, dubbed, Flying 101, even lets travelers know where le grand fromage sits. Kulula-2 More on Flying 101 here. More pics after the jump.
10 February, 2010

A combination of actual paid work, managing the film series, and unusually exotic travel have kept Contrarian away from WordPress much of the last month. We will try to do better, dear readers....

10 February, 2010
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